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Wednesday, 5 March 2014

Vintage Embroidery Patchwork

I've deviated from the plan today. I had thought I'd stick to the little projects, like the brooches, and that way perhaps even get a little bit of bathroom cleaning done too. But I sat down to eat my breakfast in front of a computer screen early this morning, before the little ones were awake, and caught up on a bit of blog reading. One of the blogs I browsed through was 'Freshly Pieced', and not only is it a very bright and beautiful WIP Wednesday there today, but they also have a giveaway on there that caught my eye. A bundle of these solids is up for grabs:

I really like these colours, and I never seem to have many suitable, solid colours in my stash of fabric. Most of my stash is made up from recycled fabrics, and I don't often find sheets/clothes/fabric remnants in my thrifting that provide solid colours. So, although the chances are I won't actually win the giveaway, I decided I really wanted to be part of WIP Wednesday this week - just in case it's my lucky day!

I have got a couple of WIPs on the go already, but I really didn't fancy blogging about them, so I started another! It's something that's been growing in my mind for a couple of months and I was planning on starting it very soon anyway. The seed in my mind was originally planted by this quilt:

This is a quilt from a book called 'Vintage Quilt Revival', which is actually co-written by Lee from 'Freshly Pieced'. The book is on my wish list but isn't one I have. I saw the image on the Vintage Quilt Revival Blog Hop which launched the book back in January. I really liked the idea of just a few quilt blocks, in different sizes, dotted around a solid background. The idea was just sitting in my mind, half forgotten, when I saw another quilt on another lovely blog - Front Forty Farm.

Another star, made from half square triangles. And seeing it laid out like this, supersized, made it seem all the more doable and set me off wanting to make my quilt.

So I started it today. My plan was to have white stars but using old, embroidered napkins and table cloths, on a plain pink background. I cut out squares, from a plain white sheet and a plain pink sheet (I do find those 2 solids thrifting!) and sliced them into triangles. There are other more streamlined ways of creating HSTs, which I would usually prefer (for instance here - in my HST Vintage Sheet picnic quilt), but this time I actually wanted individual triangles in front of me before I went any further.

The next step was to embellish all the white triangles with my napkins. I sewed these on in a variety of ways, depending on the position of the embroidery, just making sure I didn't have any raw edges across my triangles. Here are a couple to give you a bit of an idea:

Then into my squares:

And here they are, so far, laid out in my star shape. They still need trimming up before I sew them together.

I really like how it's looking so far, I've been wanting to make a quilt using embroidered napkins for a long, long time so it's great to have started. I think I'll do another 2 smaller stars and just have the 3 on my quilt in total. Hopefully I'll get a bit more done tomorrow - although the bathroom still needs a clean!

Don't forget to go and take a look at WIP Wednesday, and enter the giveaway if you're feeling lucky too! And I'll be back tomorrow.

3 comments:

The napkins are working out beautifully in the star. This is going to be such a unique and special quilt when you finish. I am making all the blocks in the vintage book...have 4 left and I will be done. It has been a fabulous learning experience.